A user centered design (UCD) has traditionally been associated with the design of any human-machine interface, where the design is tailored to users and their environments, constraints and needs. In the user experience domain, the human factor necessitates a heuristics approach to problem solving and decision making. Unfortunately, conventional techniques for generating heuristics have exhibited various limitations.
For example, when generating heuristics, developers have generally referenced Nielsen's set of 10 web design heuristics (as disclosed in “Ten Usability Heuristics” by Jakob Nielsen, 2005). However, the UCD and heuristics mentioned above are generic and as such lean towards a one size fits all solution, which results in heuristics that are too high-level to have concrete meaning. Specifically, these heuristics do not take into account any context upon which the heuristic is based. Furthermore, most developers do not have a working knowledge of heuristics, such that most design decisions are based on mental processes and best guessing that invariably leads to refinement through much iteration. There is thus a need for addressing these and/or other issues associated with the prior art.